16 Of the general Checks to Population, Bk. i. 



Promiscuous intercourse, unnatural passions, 

 violations of the marriage bed, and improper arts 

 to conceal the consequences of irregular con- 

 nexions, are preventive checks that clearly come 

 under the head of vice. 



Of the positive checks, those which appear to 

 arise unavoidably from the laws of nature, may 

 be called exclusively misery; and those which 

 we obviously bring upon ourselves, such as wars, 

 excesses, and many others which it would be in 

 our power to avoid, are of a mixed nature. They 

 are brought upon us by vice, and their conse- 

 quences are misery.* 



consider the restraint from marriage unconnected with its conse- 

 quences, I have either called it prudential restraint, or a part of 

 the preventive check, of which indeed it forms the principal branch. 



In my review of the different stages of society, I have been 

 accused of not allowing sufficient weight in the prevention of popu- 

 lation to moral restraint ; but when the confined sense of the 

 term, which I have here explained, is adverted to, I am fearful that 

 I shall not be found to have erred much in this respect. I should 

 be very glad to believe myself mistaken. 



* As the general consequence of vice is misery, and as this con- 

 sequence is the precise reason why an action is termed vicious, it 

 may appear that the term misery alone would be here sufficient, 

 and that it is superfluous to use both. But the rejection of the 

 term vice would introduce a considerable confusion into our lan- 

 guage and ideas. We want it particularly to distinguish those 

 actions, the general tendency of which is to produce misery, and 

 which are therefore prohibited by the commands of the Creator, 

 and the precepts of the moralist, although, in their immediate or 

 individual effects, they may produce perhaps exactly the contrary. 

 The gratification of all our passions in its immediate effect is hap- 

 piness, not misery ; and, in individual instances, even the remote 

 consequences (at least in this life) may possibly come under the 



